Ontario Grain Farmer June/July 2021

ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER 11 JUNE/JULY 2021 they need to succeed, including fertilizers, pesticides, and smart breeding technologies. While there is no concrete plan as of yet, Bill has visited Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Ghana, and plans to visit Zambia. He has already spent time in Burundi, and is currently developing a smart farm in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The plan is to supervise five farms in five different locations across DRC. The farms will bring value and employment opportunities to the local communities, and provide a blueprint for similar farms. Other farmers are welcome to invest in what he is doing. The idea, says Crabtree, is not to save African farmers, but to walk alongside them and provide education, practical assistance, and support. He aims to create networks and provide support as the communities learn to farm better. Once the project is stable, Bill plans to walk away. He will continue to provide support via FaceTime and emails. “The thing is, I’m not going to have equity in these projects,” he said. “They’ve got the equity. So if they fail, they are failing, not me. It’s got to be their incentive to succeed, but I will make a judgment call as to when I can be weaned.” “Some have told me that, based on past experiences, it will not work – so time will tell, but I think it worth trying,” he adds. Crabtree plans to remain in Africa for perhaps 10 years, moving from country to country as needed. His wife, Monique, is trained as a pastor who works with troubled young girls in Perth, Australia. She plans to join him in Africa when she can later this year. Follow Crabtree on Twitter at: @NoTillBill Learn more about Arise African Agriculture: www.ariseafricanag.com. l The conflict eventually took him to Brandon, Manitoba, where he worked with Canada’s foremost soil and no-till specialists for one year. land, but when they were removed from the equation stubborn weeds began to flourish. Farmers relied on tillage to control the weeds, but this tillage exposed the soil to erosion. In the following years, lengthy periods of dry wind and drought caused widespread wind erosion. At that time, Crabtree had returned home following his agricultural science studies and was employed in a three-year Department of Agriculture project called minimum tillage for wind erodible soils. Interest in the project picked up in 1990, a year marked by terrible winds and little rain. At that time, fewAustralian farmers practiced no-till. There was some minimum tillage but this was not well understood and gave unreliable results, says Crabtree. Crabtree was working as a researcher for the Department of Agriculture. The department had tried no-till in the 70s, but they hadn’t seen consistent results, but good results were in the mix and Bill was convinced it was the answer if improvements were made. “It put me at odds with the establishment because senior people within the Department of Agriculture were highly critical of no-tillage,” he says. A little annoyed, Crabtree shifted his focus to pursuing a Master’s degree in soil science. Some 20 months later he returned to the Department better equipped to debate his superiors and he joined forces with the Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association. The conflict eventually took him to Brandon, Manitoba, where he worked with Canada’s foremost soil and no-till specialists for one year. “That was a tremendous privilege for me,” he says. “I got to speak at eight conferences, including help organize the Manitoba-North Dakota Zero-Tillage Conference, which I spoke at as well in Brandon.” PROMOTING NO-TILL By the time he returned to Australia in 1997, some 70 per cent of farmers were practicing no-till. Bill then took on a job working for the Western Australian No-Till Farmers’ Association and travelled around the country, talking about the benefits of no-till and advising farmers on practices that promote soil health. He worked for the association for more than five years before launching his own private consulting business. In 2008, Crabtree purchased a 7,000-acre farmwhere he grewmainly wheat and canola. After 10 years, he leased an additional 7,000 acres, doubling the land to 14,000 acres, and continued providing consultation to other farmers. His land was also marginal, bordering on desert, and suffered six droughts in 13 years. Despite that, he was able to improve the soil, considerably increasing the land’s value. Bill sold the farm for twice its initial value in 2020, making room for a new adventure. Crabtree has always been passionate about helping people. Partially, it is his Christian values, and partially it is his passion for soil health. In 2018, he was invited to Des Moines, Iowa as one of 12 international farmers who would speak at the Global Farmers Roundtable at the World Food Prize event. As he listened to his fellow farmers speak, he realized he could help address some of their challenges. He woke early the next morning, his mind working through an idea. That idea would eventually take shape in the form of a newly developed company, Arise African Agriculture. HELPING OTHERS Crabtree aims to help Africa’s farmers by empowering them to farm at scale themselves. The aim is to create model farms that can be copied across Africa. Crabtree helps farmers reduce topsoil loss from erosion by implementing no-till farming systems that build and protect soil. The company aims to empower African farmers to take pride in ownership, and provide them with the tools